Tigers manager Jim Leyland said on MLB Network Radio that the Tigers probably aren’t going to find someone as good as Martinez. “So if you say it’s not gonna hurt us, you’re lying,” he added. Hat tip to Jason Beck of MLB.com, who has a partial transcript of Leyland's comments.

Leyland said Johnny Damon’s name will likely come up since he can contribute to a club, even if he's not a "prototype DH."

Leyland knows there are a lot of options remaining for teams in search of hitters. “How good they produce anymore, I don’t know,” he said. “And I always ultimately leave that up to Dave. We’ve already had some discussions, I won’t say who they are, of some guys internally.”

Leyland said the Tigers could round out their rotation with a trade or a free agent acquisition, James Schmehl of MLive.com writes. Turner and others would compete for the team's final rotation spot if Dombrowski doesn't add a starter.

Tigers have a lot of players they have a hard time getting abs for – why not leave the spot open for those guys and see if one of them steps forward? Other than taking a gamble on Manny Ramirez, that is probably the best way to go.

I’m alright with Johnny coming back simply because… Knowing how Leyland likes to construct his lineups, Johnny would bat 2nd instead of Don Kelly or Santiago. The 2nd spot of a tiger lineup is usually filled with an awful hitter.

Instead of all this Soriano talk, the Tigers should go after Marlon Byrd. The Cubs apparently are the favorites for Cespedes and Byrd would be a solid defender in LF for the Tigers versus below average in CF. His approach at the plate is similar to VMart as well. They could then shift Delmon Young to DH where he can’t be a defensive liability.

Am I the only one who thinks the Tigers should offer Fielder a one-year deal to come home? I mean, he spend much of his youth here clobbering homers out of Tiger Stadium. He can’t get the multiyear deal he wants. He probably doesn’t want to spend five years in Washington or Seattle if he wants to win a ring. Detroit would offer him a chance at that ring. A lefty power hitter would boost his offensive stats at Comerica Park. Give him $22 million – which he’ll probably get per year, anyway – and tell him to hit the market next year when you don’t have Pujols to contend with on the market. That’s what Ol’ Ping thinks, anyway.

Some combination of Raburn/Boesch/Young in a platoon at DH would probably be nearly as good as Martinez would have been. What’s the difference, one win, maybe? These sorts of things tend to get overblown, and then we wind up with an aging veteran stinking it up for 4 months before the Tigers realize that he’s not going to come around. This should not cost the Tigers (in money and in wins) as much as they’ll make it cost themselves.

According to FanGraphs the avg. of DYoung, Raburn, & Boesch’s WAR was 1.1 compared to VMart’s 2.9 WAR. Obviously it’s a frustrating loss for the Tigers, that I feel will cost them more then a couple games, but they play in the weak AL Central, so they should still be able to win the league and do not need to do anything drastic to overcompensate for the loss of VMart. (A healthy Boesch will be influential though).

Probably, but Peralta, Avila and Cabrera all had career years. I’ll bet on Cabrera to repeat, but expect a lot of regression from Peralta and Avila. Which is offseat by not giving the corpses of Magglio and Inge 700 PA’s of -1.5 WAR ball. Also for some reason this town is somehow convinced that Delmon Young is a good baseball player, which pushes Raburn into a platoon with Santiago, who will be used incorrectly because they both hit lefties better than righties and Leyland refuses to look at pitcher splits instead of batter handedness. What does this all mean? It’s going to be another interesting/frustrating year in Detroit.

Objectively, why would the Tigers replace one year of an injured DH with a three-year contract belonging to a player who is a defensive liability wherever he plays, even if that contract is quite reasonable (~$5MM/yr is what I think an acquiring team would have to pay for Alfonso)?

Cabrera is at first and I have to assume the Tigers are pretty dang happy with their catcher right now, so the only place for Martinez when he returns from injury is back at primary DH. That forces Soriano into LF or (eeeeep!) 2B, and both are horrible ideas that pretty much eat the offensive value he provides.

Garza to the Tigers makes a lot of sense, I think. Soriano, not so much.

I wouldn’t expect a LOT of regression from Avila. He’ll lose a bit on his BA, but he’s a line drive hitter, so his BABIP will always be above the norm. His power is legit but he’ll still bat around .270-.280, which is great.

Peralta wasn’t exactly playing out of his mind. He’s shown ability in the past. Some BA drop, but his counting stats are also legit when he’s in a productive lineup.

Peralta’s improvement is not a fluke. His walk-rate has vastly improved since his trade to the Tigers in 2010, not just in 2011. His overall approach at the plate changed after the trade. Avila has always had the ability to perform as well as he did. No fluke for either

Honestly if that was the only thing holding it up the Cubs would probably eat all of it (or as much as MLB would allow, anyway). At this point I expect them to eat about $40MM of the $54MM left on it in any potential trade. What’s another $14MM over three years at that point? Heck, the difference between Garza’s salary and his replacements’ salary would more than make that up.

They’re schizophrenic at best, and while I think the Central isn’t a terribly competitive division, I’m repeating my prediction from last year: KC and Cleveland are going to be in it.

I still think they have the best chances of any team, but it’s not the cake walk everyone makes it out to be. Remember last year when the Twins and the White Sox were supposed to slug it out for the pennant?